Managing Reusable Packaging in Circular Economies

Packaging is vital for transporting various goods, to ensure the safety, and protection of your items. With various environmental challenges happening today, preserving the resources, reducing the waste and greenhouse gasses will definitely require you to have packaging that’s reimagined. 

When optimized appropriately, the reusable packaging does hold some potential in order to address these concerns across different sectors, and here we’ll go over some strategies to manage this better. 

Consider Different Packaging Solutions  Based on industries 

You want to make sure that you use the right packaging for the requirements of your supply chain, and also, within reason, have these options. 

Some good reusable packaging alternatives include: 

• Plastic pallets which enable transport of liquid and solid goods. 

• Plastic bins, good for inter-factory types of transport and good to stack different items, especially bulkier pieces 

• Crats that are round-trips, and they provide the best protection for oversized and fragile items during the transportation process 

• Shipping boxes along with return pouches, allowing for goods security during delivery, and the pouches employed for items that are less bulky too. 

• Pallets that are plastic and wood, accommodating different load types. 

You want to make sure you use the packaging solutions that will facilitate the storage, handling, and the transit of goods. 

Collaborate with different companies 

Adding reusable packaging to your arsenal is good, but you want to make sure that it’s useful for everyone. Consider fostering collaboration with different types of return packaging. 

You might want to consider the maintenance and handling options, all of which are distributed and optimized the efficiency and reducing the burdens, knowing the storage requirements so that you’re not wasting money on too much storage space. 

And of course, making sure that you optimize this so that your transportation logistics are better. You want to make sure that you use reusable when you can, so that the transport packaging isn’t separate, but instead offers consistent supply and eliminates that need for one-time  purchases and mitigating the fluctuations of the market. 

Use a Tracking System 

Make sure to have a good tracking system with tools that are used to control the movements that are there. 

With different indicators, you can make sure that the packages follow the right routes to mitigate damage. 

Two ways you can do this are: 

• Serial numbers such as barcodes and other little indicators for a tracking system that can aid with locating packaging. 

• Blockchain technology, which is automated tracking from the origin to the destination. It offers real-time access to information for stakeholders, improves data security, and really is the high-performance solution people want. 

Maintenance for Packaging 

To optimize the management of packaging that’s reusable, it’s essential to use a maintenance process for packaging. 

This ensures that the packaging longevity is maximized prior to recycling or utter disposal. This is good because it will help to prevent contamination and degradation. 

Damaged packaging is not guaranteeing the goods and product safety, so it’s not fit for proper usage. Packaging that does need to be discarded causes company losses. 

Contaminated packaging, whether it’s mold and insects, or even other messes, also makes it a hazard to keep around. It creates a risk to the goods and safety, and leads to major health hazards for companies, and it can have dire economic consequences. 

In order to ensure packaging longevity, do the following: 

• Have an in-house facility to wash the times, and then you can develop more standardized means to maintain and clean this before usage. 

• Rent the packaging from specialized suppliers to clean these.